Look out for the <>!

I woke up the next morning to my phone buzzing. I shot up and looked around, suddenly remembering where I was. I was in 221B baker street and I did have a phone. I could hear my phone was still buzzing. "Where did I put you?" I said out loud as I got out of bed. I saw it was on the desk and grabbed it to see why it was making such a nose. I looked at it and saw three texts by none other than Sherlock Holmes.

"You got to be kidding me," I said as I looked at the messages.

Sherlock at 8:30: we are needed at 9:30.

Sherlock at 8:55: it's time.

Sherlock at 9:00: I'm leaving.

That last message was sent a minute ago. I couldn't help but smirk at his texts. He left without me. Luck was on my side today. Maybe I could even walk around town in freedom while he was out. Maybe I wouldn't have to work with him much at all.

I got out of my bed room to walk into the bathroom, and in the process walked into the family room where Sherlock was sitting on the floor.

<>

"I see you got my messages," Sherlock said with his deep voice as he opened his eyes to look at me.

I frowned at him. I thought he was gone. "Yeah," I said bluntly. Dang it.

"Get ready," he said and walked away.

I sighed loudly enough for him to hear it and walked into the bathroom to change. I put on a pair of blue jeans with a white V neck, brushed my teeth and put my red curly hair into a pony tail. I took a deep breath before I walked out of the bathroom. Here goes nothing. I was a bit nervous about this new job. I always got this feeling before I did a white collar job. I almost forgot what this felt like, I missed it. 

Sherlock was sitting on the couch and stood up when I got out. He walked over to the door and walked out without a word but I didn't need words to tell me that he was leaving, I just needed to follow him. We walked out onto the chilly summer London day. I shivered as we got into the cab, I knew I should have gotten a sweater but it was too late now.

We rode the cab in silence, the driver dropped us off in the heart of London in front of a large 14 story modern business building were something terrible happened must have appended. Police were everywhere and yellow tape was all over the place. It was quite a sight if you didn't see this stuff often.

Sherlock seemed unfazed by any of this. I on the other hand spent so long staying away from these kinds of scenes that it was hard for me to continue forward. I felt my heart speed up and my legs got harder to move with each step I took, knowing that the enigma I built up would soon disappear as I worked with the police. I would soon be known by everyone around us, but I needed to make sure that no one really knew me. That way I could still have some kind of enigma.

For the longest time if I saw something like this I would walk the other way.  I felt that I should be doing that now but I needed to earn their trust. That is when I could make my break. I straightened up my shoulders and put my head up high as if I was ready for anything.

We walked into the large glittery lobby of the building and we were directed to the back of the building where Lestrade greeted us. "You're late," Lestrude said as he walked up to us with a frown.

Without even replying to his statement, Sherlock looked past Lestrade as if something more important caught his eye. "What do we have here?" Sherlock mused as saw the dead body. It was like Lestrade didn't exist. I held back a smirk, finding this entertaining. Sherlock was in a tunnel vision and nothing around him mattered except that body.

Lestrade stepped a side as if knowing this happened often. Sherlock stepped forward to the foot of a huge old spiral stair case where a man laid dead. "Meet the lovely Cedric Pickering one of the lawyers that worked here," Lestrade said as we all got into the stair way. At the base of the steps lay a middle aged man in a crumpled heap with a little bit of blood coming out the side of his head. "A random found him. By the looks of it he died about two hours ago from a blow to the head..." he said as his voice trailed off to see what Sherlock was going to do.

Without saying a word Sherlock fell to the ground right next to Cedric. I watched him as he stared at this dead man then switch his gaze to the wall closest to him. "Interesting."

I waited for him to do something else but as minutes ticked by, I got frustrated so I looked around the room. A part of me wanted to figure out who did this and how. That feeling was burning a hole deeper into my person by the minute. But another part of me just wanted to let him or her go. I was a strong believer that they would get what was coming to them. Karma, a nasty little word I lived by. But this was a challenge, there was something about it that was pulling on me and I did love a good challenge. I wanted to solve this before Sherlock and beat him at his own game. But I didn't want to be part of this law. If I did solve this what was going to stop me from solving the next one or the one after that. Once I started I knew that it would be a slippery slope.

I switched my gaze to Cedric and saw that he was wearing a suit. He was thin and was wearing running shoes which was odd since he was wearing a suit. But if he was thin he must have worked out, I could see a faint groves on his chest showing hints of muscles. He worked out often. He must have walked to work as a part of a work out plan. That was why he was in the stair well. I bent over and looked at the tread of his shoes, they were worn on the sides and toes the most. Sprinter? I looked up at the stairs that seemed to go on forever. No, he was working on a high floor, maybe 8th? That would make sense since those shoes were so worn out for only being last season's style. He probably even walked from home to work every day.

I couldn't control it any longer, I wanted to find out more about this man. Why did he die and what for? Without another word I stepped over the body and started going up the stairs.

"Um, where are you going?" Lestrade called out to me once I was almost to the second story.

It was about time they realized that I was gone. Was I that invisible to them? "I'm going to his floor that he worked on," I said coolly back to him.

"You don't even know what floor he works on!"

And with that I heard Sherlock say, "He works on the 10th floor."

I rolled my eyes. I wasn't going to take his word on anything. Sherlock was wrong. I was sure he worked on the 8th. I was going to prove him wrong. I grabbed onto the decoratively grooved wooden railing and kept going up.

Once I got to the 8th floor I walked in and stopped to see secretary taking notes or by the way she was smiling at the computer, probably on Facebook. I walked over to her with a smile and said, "Does a man named Cedric Pickering work on this floor?"

"No, he works on the 10th," she said and smiled politely at me.

I swore under my breath. I was wrong. Without even saying thank you, I turned around and walked up a few more flights of stairs until the 10th floor. It didn't bother me that I had to walk up a few more flights of stairs, what bothered me was that he was right. He wasn't even looking at his shoes so how did he know that he worked on the 10th? Lestrade must have told him.

When I walked into the 10th floor I saw another secretary behind a desk. I walked up to him and asked, "Does Cedric work on this floor?"

"He did," the man frowned.

"Ah yes, sorry about that," I said with no sympathy in my voice. I didn't care at the moment to be pleasant. I just wanted him to answer my questions before the whole Scotland yard was in this lobby. Suddenly, the elevator opened behind me, reveling Sherlock with a smug look on his face. He knew I was wrong.

"Don't even say anything," I stated at him as he walked up to me. If I didn't have self control I would already have slapped his smug look off his face.

"I need to ask you some questions," Sherlock said to the secretary, not replying to me. It was as if I didn't exist, but that didn't bother me.

"Sure, someone already came but you can ask again," the secretary said to him.

"What was his background?" Sherlock asked.

"He was an outgoing person and he was kind to everyone. I don't know why someone would kill him. He was a great guy, worked really hard. He grew up in the slums of London and worked hard to get himself through Law school. Everyone liked him."

"But he's dead so not everyone liked him," Sherlock stated in a matter-o-fact way.

"No I guess not," he frowned at us.

I frowned at him. "Sherlock," I blurted out. I knew I wasn't the most sympatric person out there but Sherlock was even worse then I was. He couldn't just walk around and say those things. He was not going to make any friends that way.

Without another word Sherlock turned around to go back to the elevator. "I'm sorry. Thank you for your help," I said to the secretary turned around to take the stairs back down again unwilling to be in the same elevator as him.

I couldn't believe that Sherlock could be so blunt. I knew I was blunt but he was just rude. That was going to burn him in the end, didn't he see that? At least with me, I was able to hide things that I wanted to say, to put on a show. Either Sherlock didn't care to do that or he just didn't know how to act any differently.

I followed his lead and walked down the stairs. By time I got to the ground floor Sherlock was already starting to leave without me. I followed him out of the building without saying anything to Lestrude and before I knew it I was sitting in my room alone thinking about the case.

I got out a piece of paper and started to write out the facts that I knew already about Cedric.

·         He was a lawyer.

·         He was devoted to his work. Working long hours and weekends.

·         He was outgoing and a happy person.

·         He didn't talk about his past or his family much.

·         He grew up in a poor part of London.

·         He was single (so love couldn't be a factor.)

I looked at the small list, trying to think of things that stood out to me but after some time, I knew I couldn't solve this case by staring at a paper.  I needed fresh air and to step away from this. But I didn't want to go out of my room because on the other side was him. He would know what I wanted to do without me even telling him. The more I stayed around him, the more secrets he would know that I didn't want to share. I folded the paper up and stuck it in my pocket.

"Rori get your shoes on, we're leaving," Sherlock said on the other side of the door.

"Are you even going to ask me if I want to go?" I shouted but I already knew that he wasn't going to reply. I sighed loudly and got my only shoes. They where my lucky shoes, and they were worn to the point of holes in the bottom. Before prison, I wore them everywhere, the only day I didn't wear them was when I took the job that landed me in prison. Thus they had to be lucky.

I walked out and down the stairs to see him waiting by the door. "Where are we going?"

"I have a lead in the case I need to follow up on."

We walked down the road to the Tube and before long we ended up on a street with a massive hospital. I told myself long ago to never step foot in a place like this. Here just one vile of blood would tell the doctors everything about me. I remembered the bullet stuck in my side and how a friend had to pull it out.

We walked into the hospital and I frowned. It was more depressing then I thought it would be. It reek of broken dreams and chemicals.

I followed Sherlock up a stairwell and down a hall until we ended up in a white room with a young lady looking at something medical.

The lady put down what she had in her hands and smiled at Sherlock and I. "Oh hello. I didn't think you were coming today." This pretty women with brown hair said. "And who is this?" she asked looking at me.

"This is Anderson," Sherlock said without even looking at me.

"Is she your new partner?" she asked with a smile. She was awfully cheery and I wasn't a fan.

"I am not his new partner," I spat out to her and crossed my arms over my chest. I would never be. Why the hell did everyone think that? I only took this job because I wanted out.

"Oh ok then," she said with a frown.

"We are looking for a Cedric Pickering. You have him," Sherlock said as if it was a fact.

She walked over to the chart on a clip board with a bunch of names on it and said, "Yeah, I do."

"We need to see him."

"Sure. he's in the basement. You know where its at. I'll be there in a minute," she said and without saying anything else Sherlock left the room and walked back to the stairwell.

We went down to the basement and walked into a room with no windows. I shivered, this place was cold and smelt of death.

A minute later the brown haired woman walked into the room with a smile. She was way too happy to be working in a place like this.

She looked at her chart and then unfolded a blanket that was on the table, there on it was Cedric, looking as dead as ever.

"It's really weird, I thought he was killed with blow like with a shot from a gun when I first saw him. But look at this," she said and showed us a pound coin in a small bag. "This was lodged in his skull. Do you know how hard it would be to kill a man with a coin?"

"Who would do such a thing?" I asked as I looked at the coin. It was just a plain old one pound coin, I had a couple of them in my pocket now. There was nothing odd about it at all.

"Someone was sending a message," Sherlock stated.

Before I knew what I was doing I spoke back to him saying, "But to who?"

"Well you can keep looking over him if you like I have to get some papers from down the hall," the woman said.

As soon as she left I walked over to the closest thing that resembled a desk and took out my paper that had my facts and got a pen.

·         Pound coin killed him. (Sending a message?)

"A list, that's smart." Sherlock said to me from across the room.

"I don't need you to tell me what's smart," I snapped and folded the paper and put it back in my pocket and turned to face him. I always did facts like this, even when I did white collar crimes. It was easier to keep things straight but it wasn't my idea to start doing it.

The smartest man I knew back then and the man I thought I loved showed me this technique. He went by the name of Kale Cossar when I met him. He was just like me, a white collar thief. I thought we where inseparable but I guess I was wrong because once I was locked up I never saw him again. I should have expected that, it seemed that every one in my life always ended up leaving me or vice versa.

"Hey, I'm back," the woman said as she walked back into the room.

"You put lip gloss on," Sherlock stated to her.

She frowned at him. "No I didn't," she said flatly.

"I like it, it complements your jaw line," he said coolly.

She blushed a bright shade of red and smiled at him.

I just stood there in silence as I watched them attempt to flirt. It was painful. I only knew Sherlock for a matter of a day but I didn't think he had enough people skills to have this kind of human interaction. By the way he treated the people around him, I couldn't believe that she would like him. Did she enjoy being treated poorly?

"I saw what I needed. Thank you Molly," Sherlock said to the woman and walked out of the room.

"You're welcome," she called out to him as we left.